Dis Channel tween troika soars to Fri. night heights

USA also hot with season premieres

Friday night was a good one for Disney Channel and USA Network.

Disney Channel beat all TV competition — including broadcast fare — from 8-9:30 p.m. Friday with a programming event featuring new episodes of "Hannah Montana," "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "Cory in the House."

Disney Channel also was Friday's most-watched basic cable network in total day (2.3 million) and primetime (4.5 million) among total viewers and was the No. 1 network overall for the day in kids 6-11 (944,000) and tweens 9-14 (958,000).

In addition, "Wish Gone Amiss" improved Disney Channel's viewership over a year ago by 50% in total viewers (5.1 million vs. 3.4 million), 47% in 6-11 (2.2 million vs. 1.5 million) and 92% in 9-14 (2.5 million vs. 1.3 million).

Meanwhile, "Psych" had its second-season premiere on USA at 8 p.m. Friday, followed at 9 p.m. by the sixth-season premiere of "Monk." The shows were the two most-watched basic cable programs of Friday night among the key adult demos of 18-49 and 25-54.

"Psych" averaged 1.8 million viewers in 18-49 and 2.1 million in 25-54, outdelivering even broadcast competition from CBS in both demos.

"Monk" was Friday's No. 2 basic cable program in the demos, averaging 1.6 million in 18-49 and 2.1 million in 25-54. That outperformed all broadcast fare in 25-54 as well as competition from ABC, CBS and Fox in 18-49.

Both shows performed only slightly under the recent premiere of USA's new hit Thursday night series "Burn Notice," which averaged 2 million in 18-49 and 2.2 million in 25-54 on June 30.

The premieres of "Monk" and "Psych" helped USA win the night in basic cable primetime in both demos as well as in adults 18-34.